


The Best Revenge

by lindmea



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Robin Ellacott's Green Dress, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-11-07 20:06:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11066181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindmea/pseuds/lindmea
Summary: A night out for Robin and Cormoran takes an unexpected, but not unpleasant, turn.





	1. Chapter 1

“Cormoran, there’s a wedding invite here for you.”

It took a moment for Robin’s words to register with Strike, engrossed as he was with the notes he was reviewing. He didn’t bother to look up from the file.

“Chuck it in the bin,” he said, flipping over a page. Robin didn’t answer, but he could feel her gaze resting on him from the other end of the desk where she sat behind the computer, opening the day’s mail. Strike was conscious of the fact that they hadn’t sat together like this in some time, not since they’d hired a permanent receptionist. For the past week, however, Ms. Fisher had been away visiting her daughter and new-born grandson, and they had fallen easily into their old routines.

It had been nice, Strike reflected, to see Robin every day instead of communicating mainly through texts and phone calls. He liked spending time with her; liked it far too much, he knew. But they would be back to normal on Monday, both constantly busy with surveillance, so he might as well enjoy her company while he could.

He realized that she had been silent for quite some time, and glanced up. She had turned her chair to face him, a stiff cream-coloured card and envelope in her hands and a look of incredulity on her face.

“You don’t even want to see whose wedding it is?”

Robin held the invitation out expectantly towards him; he rolled his eyes at her.

“Whose is it, then?” he said, making no move to take the proffered card.

“Someone called James Brogan, who is apparently marrying someone called Olivia Tatham.”

“Chuck it in the bin.” Strike suppressed a grin at her exasperated sigh and returned his attention to his file.

Robin watched him read with her brow furrowed. She was used to Strike avoiding what he considered unpleasant social obligations, and to his grumbling when he couldn’t do so; why it irritated her so much today, she couldn’t say.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention him,” she asked, trying to keep her tone casual. Strike shrugged.

“He was a bloke I knew at university, before I left,” he said, still focused on his reading.

“A friend?”

“I suppose. Ran into him a couple months ago, but that was the first time we’d spoken in… Christ, a decade at least.”

“Why would he invite you to his wedding, then?” Robin pressed.

“No clue.”

Robin continued to study the invitation. “The thirtieth of June… That’s only a month from now. You must’ve been on the reserve list.”

Strike looked up from his file at last, intrigued. “The what now?”

“The reserve list,” Robin explained. “It’s like a second tier of guests that you send an invite to if some of your first choices can’t make it.” She dropped the invitation on the desk; Strike picked it up, glancing at the date.

“Flattering,” he said with a dismissive shrug, swiveling to drop the card in the trash. Robin shot him a derisive glance, but turned to the computer and started to work through the morning’s emails. After a few minutes, though, the sound of Robin tapping the keyboard slowed, and then stopped.

“Are you really not going to go?”

 Strike looked over at Robin quizzically, but she hadn’t turned away from the computer monitor; her hands hung suspend over the keyboard.

“Course not,” he said, watching the back of her red-gold head.

“Why?”

She still hadn’t turned her chair back to face him.

“Why would I want to? I hate weddings. Bloody waste of time.”

“Yes, god forbid you be forced to eat a free meal and interact pleasantly with other human beings,” she said, her voice icy. She resumed her typing with a vengeance.

“It’s not really free if you have to bring a gift,” Strike said defensively, to no response other than the clattering of the keyboard. He studied the tense line of her shoulders, wondering why she seemed to be taking his indifference as a personal affront. Robin had been working through her weekends lately, joking that it was either run surveillance or sit at home alone; she didn’t have many friends in London, he knew. Perhaps she would have been pleased to receive an invitation to an old friend’s wedding, would have seen it as a welcome diversion.

“Would you like to go?” The question slipped out before he could stop himself, but he knew his intuition was correct when she shot him a startled glance, abandoning her determined focus on the invoice she was filling out.

“I’m not the one who’s invited,” she reminded him, her raised eyebrows and patient tone clearly implying that she thought Strike had taken momentary leave of his senses. Perhaps he had; what was he thinking?

He hadn’t been able to prevent a close friendship from forming between them, nor had he been entirely successful in repressing his entirely unprofessional feelings towards her. Surely, though, he wasn’t going to deliberately and recklessly court danger like this? An evening with her on his arm, dressed to the nines – dinner, drinks, dim lighting – it would be far too easy in such a setting to let his resolve crumble, to make a move that would prove to be disastrous for their partnership.

He was tempted, though. Sorely tempted. _Goddammit_.

“It said I’ve got a plus one,” he said, against his better judgement; he was immediately rewarded by the slow half-smile of disbelief and hope that spread across Robin’s face.

“Are you asking me to go with you?” Robin asked. She could feel herself begin to blush, and started shuffling through the mail again in an attempt to hide the slight tremble of her hands and the sudden fluttering in her stomach. Strike’s chair creaked a little as he leaned back.

“Well, you’re the one who’s so keen on me going; I don’t want to suffer alone,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.” He wasn’t at all sure; but he supposed he couldn’t take it back now – especially if doing so dimmed the sparkle of excitement that had appeared in her eyes.

“All right, then,” she said with feigned nonchalance. “I’ll take care of the RSVP, shall I?” She knew very well that, if left in Strike’s care, the response card would never be filled out, and her pointed look at Strike to that effect made him grin.

“Cheers,” Strike said, as he heaved himself to his feet. He thought he’d go for a smoke while he tried to figure out just how big a fuck-up this was going to turn out to be.

\--

The afternoon of June thirtieth was sunny and warm, and the tube carriage in which Robin stood, sandwiched uncomfortably between a scruffy looking backpacker and a middle-aged woman loaded with shopping, was packed. She silently blessed her foresight in leaving her dress for that evening at the office; the morning’s surveillance had taken much longer than anticipated, and she would never have had the time to travel back to her flat in order to change. She was running late as it was, and her pace as the train disgorged its passengers onto the platform was brisk.

As she navigated the construction on Tottenham Court Road, Robin forced herself to analyze her feelings about the coming evening. She was excited, yes, and she was trying hard to convince herself that this was entirely due to the fact that she was looking forward to getting out of her flat for once, to dressing up and having some fun. Since she and Matthew had separated almost six months ago, her social life had become somewhat barren; their friends in London had all been Matthew’s, and she had been too engrossed with work to bother spending much time meeting new people on her own. Really, the only people with whom she regularly interacted were Strike and their new secretary.

Robin sighed. She might as well be honest with herself; it wasn’t the prospect of canapés and small talk that had distracted her for weeks with anticipation, or that had created the swelling bubble of nervousness and excitement that was lodged somewhere behind her breastbone.

 _You’re being silly_ , she told herself as she started up the clanging metal staircase to the office. Strike didn’t think of her in that way, she was sure. They were friends, and he’d asked her to accompany him as his friend, nothing more. _He probably just feels sorry for you_ , she thought, momentarily bitter. She had had more than her fair share of condescension and pity from friends and family in the aftermath of her split with Matthew.

The front door of the office was open; the first thing she saw upon entering was Strike, dressed in his nicest suit and rifling through the filing cabinet. He greeted her without looking up, intent on his search.

“You look smart,” she said, dropping her bag on the couch, and it was true. It had been a long time since Robin had thought of Strike as unattractive; she had grown used to his battered face and massive frame, she supposed. She liked knowing him well enough to read the small changes in expression which betrayed his feelings, where other people saw nothing but surliness. As she moved around the desk to find the holdall she had stashed there, she couldn’t help but shoot an admiring glance from beneath her lashes at the way his broad shoulders filled out his suit jacket.

He acknowledged the compliment with a short nod.

 “How’d it go with the Nutter?” he asked, as he extracted the file he’d been looking for and shut the drawer.

Robin’s task that morning had been to shadow their young female client, who had been in receipt of several frightening letters from someone who seemed to be very familiar with her movements. They had hoped that putting the client herself under surveillance might flush out whoever was stalking her.

“See for yourself,” Robin said, fishing a camera out of her bag and handing it to Strike.  “I’m going to get changed, I’ll just be a minute.” She vanished out to the landing with her holdall, and Strike heard the click of the bathroom’s latch as the fan whirred to life.

He sat down behind the desk and, after a bit of searching, found the cable that connected the camera to the USB port. A few clicks brought up the camera’s folder, which was full of pictures; as Strike scrolled, he saw the same man in every one – middle-aged, nondescript, with pale blond hair and a thin frame. There were pictures of him sipping coffee and staring at their client, of him walking behind her, lurking in a doorway while she browsed a street stall. Robin had even captured the man using his mobile to take sneaky pictures of their client.

The last few photos were of the man alone, sitting on a tube carriage, then entering a shabby apartment building. She had carefully taken pictures of the address, and of the directory above the buzzer

“This is fantastic,” he said as Robin re-entered the room in a soft cloud of perfume. He scrolled back up to examine the most incriminating photos again. “Nice work.” He looked up at her then, and instantly regretted it.

The poison green dress hugged her curves just as tightly as he remembered it doing the first time he had seen her in it, but he was somehow unprepared for just how beautiful she looked, with her hair falling in rose-gold waves around her face, and the glittering heels she wore making her legs look impossibly long. The only saving grace for his dignity was that the deep blue wrap she carried hid from his view the expanse of creamy skin revealed by the dress’s plunging back.

He cleared his throat and managed to wrench his gaze away from the delicate curve of her hip.

 “Nice dress,” he said, pleased that his voice was steadier than he felt. “Looks familiar.”

“It should do,” she tossed back before she turned and bent to rummage through her bag. “You’re probably still paying it off.”

Strike snorted with laughter at this, then went back to flipping through the photographs that Robin had spent all morning taking. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she peered into her small compact, darkening the makeup around her eyes and applying fresh lipstick, and felt slightly guilty as he did so; he had always found watching women apply cosmetics to be an oddly intimate act.

As they prepared to leave – computer turned off, Robin’s holdall neatly stowed, the desk cleared of papers – Strike reflected that he probably owed her a proper compliment on her appearance, one without a flippant remark attached; women liked to have their efforts appreciated, in his experience.

“You look beautiful,” he therefore told her sincerely, as she locked the office door behind them, and was rewarded by the sight of her face flushing a brilliant pink as she murmured her thanks.

As they walked together out of the building, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and there its soft pressure remained as they set off down Denmark Street in search of a taxi.


	2. Chapter 2

Strike couldn’t stop his mind from wandering as the service dragged on, interminably long. Why, he wondered, did marrying couples insist on such pageantry? There had to be close to three hundred people crowded into the cavernous ballroom, fighting for space with the massive arrangements of flowers and hangings of gauzy fabric that seemed to cover every available surface. Surely only a small fraction of the mass of guests were close enough to the couple standing at the front of the room to genuinely care about the ceremony that was underway. Strike would be prepared to wager good money that three quarters of the finely dressed crowd were as bored and disinterested in the whole affair as he was.

His wandering gaze happened to fall on Robin, sitting beside him, watching the proceedings with every apparent sign of attentiveness; but her hands were restless, he saw, continuously folding, unfolding, and twisting the program that they had been handed when they took their seats.

The sudden realization hit Strike with almost tangible force; it was, almost to the day, a full year since Robin herself had stood at the front of the ancient church in Masham, reciting her own vows. Strike had been a witness, in the months that followed her wedding, to the increasing frequency of Robin arriving early at work, puffy-eyed and pale from tiredness; to the heated arguments conducted over mobiles in harsh whispers when Robin’s hours at work stretched into the evening; and, finally, to the exhaustion and defeat in Robin’s eyes as she had asked him for a day off to move her things to the room she had rented in Bromley. He wasn’t sure at what point his dislike for Matthew had deepened into outright loathing, but he was certain that his fantasies of punching the accountant had become far too elaborate - and frequent - for comfort.

Was she remembering those miserable months now, he wondered, while she watched a radiant bride, beaming through her tears, slide the ring onto her new husband’s finger? Strike attempted to study his partner’s profile out of the corner of his eye; she didn’t look upset, but then again, Strike was very familiar with Robin’s abilities as an actress. Distracted, he failed to notice the ceremony coming to a close, and was several beats behind the rest of the congregation in rising to applaud the new couple, earning himself a quizzical look from Robin.

“You okay?” Strike asked her, quietly, as they waited patiently to file out of their row and join the receiving line.

“What do you mean?” Robin looked around at him, slightly suspicious; Strike shrugged.

“I just thought, with all the… you know,” he pressed on, waving his arm vaguely towards the altar, attempting to encompass the general atmosphere of romance. Robin narrowed her eyes - in irritation, Strike realized. With him. _Shit_.

“What, am I so heartbroken and – and _bloody fragile_ that I can’t handle watching two perfect strangers getting married?” Robin kept her voice low, but her outrage was clearly apparent; obviously, Strike had touched a nerve.

“No, that’s not – I meant-” Seeing her eyes flash in sudden anger, Strike quickly thought better of his attempt to backpedal, and raised his hands in what he hoped was a conciliatory fashion. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.” Robin said nothing, but folded her arms tightly across her chest, and started fixedly at the wall opposite.

As they inched forward in the line, Robin’s flash of temper cooled, and her fundamentally kind nature re-asserted itself, along with a creeping sense of guilt. Strike didn’t deserve to have his head bitten off, just for trying to be understanding. She sighed.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…” she had to pause, searching for the words to explain herself properly. “I’m so tired of people deciding to feel sorry for me.” She could feel Strike’s dark eyes resting on her face, and kept her own gaze fixed firmly on the feathered hat of the young woman standing in front of her.

“I’m happy. I’ve got our work, my own space…” Robin trailed off, unable to immediately think of any further benefits of her current single life, but determined nevertheless to extinguish any sense of pity that Strike might feel for her. But when she chanced a glance sideways and met his eyes, it wasn’t pity that she saw, but rather understanding – the same piercing understanding that sometimes unnerved her, which made her worry that the detective was somehow capable of reading her innermost thoughts, as though he _knew_ her on a level that she barely knew herself.

She held his glance for only a moment, then looked quickly back at the bobbing feathers in front of her. She could feel herself starting to blush; Strike was sometimes entirely too perceptive.

As the line moved slowly forward, they shuffled along with it. After a minute or two, Strike cleared his throat, breaking the somewhat awkward silence.

“I’m starving,” he said. “How long d’you think until we get to the food?”

Robin couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her at this, nor could she disguise the fondness in her voice as she rolled her eyes at him and chided, “You’re ridiculous. I’m going to have to start carrying snacks for you everywhere we go.”

Strike assumed an expression of exaggerated thoughtfulness. “It’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had. How many biscuits do you think you could fit in there?” He nodded towards the undersized clutch in Robin’s hand.

“I _might_ need a slightly bigger bag,” Robin laughed, her earlier irritation forgotten. “Something like that, maybe,” she whispered, tilting her head subtly towards the tiny elderly woman standing several feet ahead of them, whose handbag, the same bright pink as her hat and coat, looked quite large enough to hide a medium-sized toddler.

Strike’s snort of laughter earned him several reproving glares, and a clearly audible ‘tsk, tsk’ from somewhere in the line behind them. Thankfully, and quite suddenly, they reached the head of the line, and were brought face-to-face with the bride and groom. Strike stepped forward to greet his old friend. Before he could speak, however, the bride – a pretty, petite woman with masses of curly dark hair and bright brown eyes – gasped loudly.

“You’re Cormoran Strike!” Her excitement was palpable, as she grasped Strike’s outstretched hand with both of her own. “I could not _believe_ Jimmy when he told me he knew you – is it true that you were _inside_ the Shacklewell Ripper’s murder flat?”

Strike opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, at a complete loss. He was rescued by Jimmy, who gently freed Strike’s hand from his wife’s enthusiastic grip.

“Livvy is a big fan of true crime,” he explained, grinning unapologetically at the discomfited Strike. Robin, stifling her amusement, introduced herself and made the appropriate remarks of thanks and congratulations; Livvy, seemingly unperturbed by the detective’s stony expression and monosyllabic responses, began to eagerly question him on the details of his most recent high profile case.

It took several minutes for Strike to extricate himself, managing to do so only upon a promise that he would join the new couple for a dinner party upon their return from their honeymoon; finally, however, he managed it, and they stepped out into a large, sunny courtyard lined with further extravagant arrangements of flowers, crowded with milling guests, and dotted with small, high tables and waiters bearing silver trays of delicate hors d'oeuvres. As they moved slowly around the edges of the crowd, looking for a space to stand, Robin leaned in close to Strike, her eyes alight with humour and her loose waves of hair brushing briefly over his shoulder.

“At least we know why you were invited now,” she murmured quietly in his ear. Strike shot her a dirty look, but she smiled sweetly and serenely back at him. “I’ll go find us drinks,” she said, and disappeared into the crowd around them before he could respond.

By the time Robin rejoined him, carrying two slim glasses of champagne, Strike had waylaid a passing waiter and helped himself to a generous handful of the tray’s offerings.

“These are good,” he said around a mouthful of coconut shrimp, accepting his glass with a nod of thanks. “You should try some.”

Robin didn’t answer; her gaze was fixed on a point somewhere beyond Strike’s shoulder in an expression of sudden horror.

 “Oh, _bugger_ ,” she breathed.

“What?” Strike turned, looking to see what had caught her attention, but it took a few seconds of searching before he caught sight of a familiar head of tawny hair and chiseled profile. He squinted, trying to get a clearer view. “Wait – is that-?”

Before he could finish, Robin had grabbed his arm and pulled him sharply around so that they were both facing away from the tall, handsome figure standing at the bar. Strike had seen him only for a moment, but the man was instantly familiar. Matthew.

 “What is he doing here?” Robin hissed, glaring back over her shoulder. “And with Sarah _fucking_ Shadlock!” She sounded, if it was possible, even more outraged over this than the fact of Matthew’s sudden appearance.

Strike, now curious – he had never before heard Robin swear so vehemently - craned his own neck around for another look. Matthew was standing next to a woman, shorter than him by several inches even in heels, her sleek dress and matching fascinator an eye-catching shade of scarlet. As Strike watched, she giggled coquettishly and rested her hand lightly on the accountant’s lapel.

“The blonde?” Strike asked.

“ _Yes_.” He could feel the tension radiating from Robin, standing as close as she was. His mental filing system threw up a flashcard; Sarah Shadlock was the woman that Matthew had cheated with, which went a long way to explain Robin’s vehemence. Strike risked another glance over his shoulder. On closer scrutiny, it seemed to him that - though attractive enough - Sarah, when placed next to Robin, could only suffer in the comparison. His opinion of Matthew’s taste and judgement, already quite low, slipped down another notch. He shrugged.

“Well, there has to be at least three hundred people here,” he pointed out, quite reasonably. “It’s not like you’re going to have to make conversation.”

Robin appeared to take a deep breath, and made a shaky attempt at a smile. She took a bracing gulp of champagne.

“You’re right,” she said, and the champagne appeared to steady her smile, which almost reached her eyes. “I doubt they’ll even notice we’re here.”

\--

“You have _got_ to be _kidding_ me.” Robin pulled up short.

They had, after several more canapés and another round of champagne, been ushered into another large ballroom, this one packed with tables around a large empty dance floor. After finding their names – correctly spelled, Strike noted, impressed – in the ranks of place cards displayed in precise, orderly rows on the large table near the door, they had begun to weave their way to the far side of the room where their assigned table lay.

The cause of Robin’s abrupt halt and soft cry of dismay was readily apparent; they had just rounded a pillar allowing them to see Table H clearly and, along with it, the guests who had already settled into their seats; tall, handsome Matthew, his arm draped around the shoulders of Sarah Shadlock.

Strike, who could clearly make out the accountant’s clenched jaw and reddening face, guessed that Matthew had seen them approaching at the same moment that they had spotted him.

“Y’know, we could just leave,” Strike said quietly to Robin, who hadn’t moved. He was half hopeful that she would agree to this, that they could retreat to the comforts of a nearby pub; he certainly did not fancy the thought of an entire night spent between an angry Matthew and resentful Robin. But she was already shaking her head, eyes glittering in anger.

“If we leave, Matthew will think he’s won,” she said emphatically. “I’m not giving him the satisfaction.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and set her chin in the stubborn line that Strike recognized all too well; yet she remained standing where she was, and, after a moment, Strike had to pull her aside to clear a path for those coming up behind them. Robin, defiance fading, leaned against the pillar and sighed.

“I just wish-” she began, then cut herself off, twisting her mouth in a moue of annoyance. She didn’t continue.

“What?” Strike prompted.

“Nothing.” Robin pushed herself upright again and, bracing her shoulders, resumed walking, Strike keeping pace beside her.

“What do you wish?”

“It’s petty. Childish,” Robin said, already regretting that she had said anything. Strike looked at her expectantly, and she relented; if anyone could understand, it would be Strike – she remembered his own devastation, when they had first met, in the wake of his split with Charlotte.

“I just wish that I could be the one to ruin _his_ night.” Robin felt a stab of shame as she said the words out loud. She was supposed to have moved on, to have gotten over the misery and anger of the months leading up to and following her ill-fated marriage; she was supposed to be above a spiteful desire for retaliation. _Grow up_ , she chided herself. She had to act like an adult, no matter how bloody miserable it made her.

Strike had slowed, brow furrowed in thought, clearly undergoing some sort of internal debate. Seeming to come to some sort of conclusion, he looked at her intently, as though searching for something in her expression.

“I could think of a way to ruin his night,” he said slowly, as though unsure himself that it was a good idea. Robin stared at him for a moment, dubious; but her curiosity, and a strange mischievous urge that seemed to bubble up quite suddenly from some hidden corner of her mind, won out.

“How?”

Strike grinned conspiratorially and placed his hand on the small of her back, moving closer to her as they neared their table; Robin’s stomach turned over deliciously, and she could feel herself start to blush again. _Get a grip_ , she chided herself. Strike leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Follow my lead.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

There were only two unoccupied seats left when Robin and Strike reached the table.  Strike dropped his hand from where it had rested on the small of Robin’s back and stepped ahead of her; in an uncharacteristically chivalrous gesture, he pulled out one of the empty chairs and stood beside it, waiting for Robin to take her seat. She thought that she could see a spark of mischief in his eyes, and the twitching corner of his mouth indicated that he was trying to hide a smile; what was he planning? As she murmured her thanks and moved to sit down, Strike caught her hand in his. In one smooth gesture, he raised the back of her hand to his lips and brushed it with a brief, chaste kiss.

A frisson of shock shot through Robin at the touch of Cormoran’s lips on her skin; she fell the rest of the way into her chair, trying desperately to keep her features arranged in a neutral expression as Cormoran took his own seat and turned to introduce himself to the middle-aged woman sitting on his other side. What on earth was Strike playing at? He had kissed her hand before, of course, just the once; but they had been alone, and she had written the old-fashioned gesture off as a bit of eccentricity, an expression of his jubilation at solving the Quine case. To repeat the gesture here, in front of a table full of people including her ex-husband; it made it seem as though – oh. _Oh_.

In an instant, the shape of Strike’s plan had become clear, and Robin felt a thrill of excitement and admiration. She knew that nothing, _nothing_ would infuriate Matthew more than believing that Strike and Robin had become a couple; somehow, whether by accident or intuition, Strike had struck upon the perfect means of provoking the accountant. Robin had to stifle a sudden giggle at the sight of Matthew across the table, his expression stony as he stared fixedly at the drink he was holding. Strike had said to follow his lead… well, surely she could do better than just following.

The woman sitting next to Strike, who had introduced herself at Peggy, had launched into a lengthy explanation of her connection to the bride; as far as Strike could gather, they were co-workers, along with several others at the table – but Peggy seemed to feel that the intricacies of their office’s politics needed a full explanation. Strike was trying to feign polite interest in the story of Livvy’s promotion – accompanied by several interjections and corrections from Alice, another middle-aged woman sitting on the other side of Peggy – when he felt a soft touch on his right hand, where it rested casually on top of the table. He glanced over at Robin; she had placed her hand on top of his, interlacing their fingers. She smiled sweetly at him, her bright eyes telling him plainly, and to his relief, that she understood the game.

Turning his attention back to Peggy, he realized that she had continued her introductions, reaching the couple sitting directly opposite Strike and Robin.

“And this is Sarah, and – I’m sorry, I don’t remember…” Peggy trailed off, but Strike helpfully filled in the blank for her.

“Matthew,” he said pleasantly, nodding in acknowledgement.

Matthew returned the nod stiffly, but said nothing.

“Oh, do you know each other?” This was one of the other young women at the table, whose name Strike hadn’t caught.

“We’re old friends,” Strike answered pleasantly, looking levelly at Matthew, who met his gaze for a moment before looking away. His face flushed with anger, but he didn’t contradict Strike, perhaps realizing that he couldn’t do so without coming off as rude. Sarah, on the other hand, leaned forward eagerly and offered her hand to the detective.

 “So, I finally get to meet the famous Cormoran Strike,” she said, as Strike shook her hand. She lowered her voice and continued, conspiratorially, “Robin could never stop talking about you.” She winked.

Robin had to bite back an angry retort at this; she had forgotten just how irritating she found Sarah’s cloying charm and tendency towards shit-stirring. Strike, as though he could sense her fury, gave her fingers – still entangled with his – a gentle squeeze. He had answered Sarah politely enough, but Robin could detect the very slight edge of irony in his voice that told her he wasn’t at all impressed by the woman. It was this, more than anything else, which helped Robin tamp down her anger and hike a smile back onto her face.

Sarah’s gaze, which had been sweeping up and down in a thorough assessment of Strike’s massive frame, lingered for a moment on their intertwined hands.

“So, you two are together now?” she asked, with a sly, sidelong glance at Matthew, who had remained stubbornly silent throughout.

“That’s right,” Strike said. “For – what was it – two months?” he glanced over at Robin, as though seeking confirmation.

“Three,” she said firmly.

At that, the father of the bride stood up to give a welcoming speech, cutting off the conversation at their table. In a few moments more, a waiter appeared at Robin’s elbow, appetizer in hand. She felt a disconcerting pang of regret at letting go of Strike’s hand; his grip had been warm, and somehow comforting.

Though Robin was used to Strike’s taciturn nature, she was also well aware that he could be charming when he chose. As their table tucked into dinner, however, she began to realize that she had never before seen him go at full steam, as it were. Alice and Peggy, upon realizing that he was _that_ Cormoran Strike, had begun to pelt him with questions. Instead of brushing them off, though, as Robin had seen him do dozens of times before, he seemed to be encouraging them, volunteering information about their work that had the ladies gasping.

By the time the main course had arrived, Strike had begun telling stories to the entire table in vivid style, stories which elicited, alternately, roaring laughter or exclamations of delicious horror. Matthew was the only one who did not seem to find Strike entertaining. Robin, who had attended numerous dinners with the accountant over the years that they had been together, knew that he was accustomed to dominating group conversations; now, he was eating in almost sullen silence, stabbing at his food with unnecessary vigour.

At the same time as he was enthralling the table, however, Strike was apparently taking great pains to – and she could think of no other term for it – show Robin off. He would turn to her for confirmation of certain details that he claimed not to remember, or would insist that she take over a story because she told it better than he did; between courses, he would rest his arm along the back of her seat, and she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, only inches from hers. At one point, while waiting for the waiters to clear their dishes, Strike had begun to absentmindedly trace patterns on her bare upper arm with his thumb. This had made Robin shiver, goosebumps rising along her arms, and he had seemed to come to himself; with a cough, he had shifted in his seat and dropped his hand back to his beer.

It was embarrassing to admit, but Robin could feel herself blossoming – just thinking the word made her cringe inwardly – under the force of his attention. She wondered if this was how he always behaved around his girlfriends; it would certainly explain what she had always perceived as his bizarre ability to pull the most beautiful women. She had an inkling, though, that this wasn’t the case, that it was entirely for Matthew’s benefit; she caught his eyes occasionally flickering past the accountant, as though gauging the effect that his performance was having.

It felt to Robin as though they were undercover, sharing a secret, united against the rest of the world. It became a game, as the partners tried to one-up each other in ostentatious displays of affection. Strike poured Robin a glass of wine, which he presented to her with a flourish; Robin insisted on feeding Strike a piece of chicken from her fork – he had, of course, chosen the steak for himself. Strike tucked an errant wave of hair behind Robin’s ear; she fetched him another bottle of beer from the bar and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek when she delivered it. Robin, who appeared to have made fast friends with the young gay couple on her right side, told them at length about the romantic – and entirely fictional – vacation that they had taken to Rome; Strike briefly considered staging a dramatic proposal of marriage, but decided on balance that it would probably be in poor taste.

 “You two are just so sweet,” Alice – or Peggy, Robin was a little unclear as to which was which – said earnestly, leaning forward over her pudding. “You remind me of Will and Kate.”

Seeing Strike’s dubious expression, Alice-or-Peggy clarified,

“You know, there are just some couples that you can tell are going to go the distance,” she explained. “I’m a little bit psychic, you know. I can always tell.”

For the first time that evening, Strike appeared to be at a loss for words. Robin came to his rescue.

“That is so sweet of you to say.”

“Yes, Will and Kate are one,” she continued, “and you two are definitely another. It’s so wonderful that you get to work together. I wish we could all be so lucky.” She sighed dramatically; Robin guessed that the woman had been less than lucky in love.

Robin chose her next words carefully, aware of Matthew listening intently across the table.

“You know, it was really the work that brought us together,” she said, reaching over to clasp Strike’s hand again, smiling fondly over at him. “All the late nights, the surveillance… I guess it was just inevitable.” At this, both of the older women pressed their hands to their chests, making identical high-pitched murmurs of appreciation and envy at the romance of it all; Matthew’s chair scraped across the floor as he stood up, announcing that he would go fetch a round for the table.

As she turned back to her own pudding, Robin realized that there was a slightly uncomfortable truth in what she had just said, even though she had crafted her words solely to annoy Matthew. It had been during a stakeout - now that she thought about it, it actually was about three months ago - that she first realized that her feelings towards Strike had grown beyond the bounds of partnership, beyond even those of friendship. They had been parked in the Land Rover a few doors down from the building they were watching; Strike had said something, she couldn't remember what, that had made her laugh - harder than she'd laughed in months, made her laugh until tears came to her eyes. When she had managed to bring herself under control, she had looked over at him, and he was smiling at her, his face soft with genuine affection. Quite suddenly, her stomach had fluttered in a way she hadn't felt in years, not since she was a teenager.

The Land Rover had seemed to grow physically smaller; she had become, in an instant, acutely aware of his massive body so close to hers, and at the same moment realized that she wanted to kiss him, wanted to close the small distance between them and discover how it would feel to press herself against him, to be wrapped in his strong arms. She hadn't done anything of the sort, of course. She had wrestled down the surprisingly strong urge and continued the stakeout, a consummate professional.

Strike had appeared oblivious to the sudden tension she felt. She'd watched him closely in the days that followed, and he’d acted in much the same way as he always had, treating her as a friend, a partner, but in that blokey way that showed he was barely even aware that she was a woman, let alone a romantic prospect. Robin, though, aware now of her attraction to him, had begun to explore her own feelings - and had been slightly horrified to discover that they ran much deeper than she had realized.

 Looking at Strike now, explaining some aspect of detective work to Peggy-and-Alice around a mouthful of cheesecake, she finally admitted to herself the fact that she had been avoiding; she had fallen in love with her partner, with her best friend, and she didn't know what the hell she was going to do about it. _Bugger_.

The pudding finished, and speeches underway, Strike decided that it was an auspicious time to excuse himself for a cigarette. He stepped out on to the patio, nodding to the small group of similarly exiled smokers as he lit up. He leaned against the balustrade as he smoked, enjoying the feel of the cool air against his forehead; he had begun to feel almost feverish, his skin burning where Robin’s touches, brief though they had been, had seared themselves into his flesh. _You’re a fucking idiot_ , he told himself. He was in way over his head. He never should have suggested this game, nor should he have allowed it to get so far; but he couldn't seem to help himself.

He had known that Robin was a skilled actress, had seen her become numerous different characters to winkle information out of reluctant witnesses, but her performance tonight was on another level entirely. He had found it entirely too easy to sink into the fantasy that they had constructed; to imagine himself free to touch Robin whenever he wanted, to believe that he would take her home with him at the end of the evening rather than seeing her safely to a cab and sleeping alone in his empty flat.

He looked in through the open door, taking a deep drag of his smoke, and saw Matthew and Sarah by the bar; they appeared to be in the middle of a heated argument. From his position, he could see Robin as well, chatting animatedly to someone out of his sight, cheeks red and eyes sparkling, possibly due to the fact that she'd just finished her second glass of champagne. _It’s worth it_ , Strike thought. Even if this stupid game only lasted one night, and even if it made it more difficult for him to repress his growing feelings, gave him a taste of what he desired and then yanked it away, it was worth it to see Robin as she was now, smiling and beautiful, and - for one night - to be able to pretend to himself and the world that she was his.

He dropped his cigarette on the stone floor of the patio and ground it out with his heel. As he headed back inside, moving carefully through the crowded room, he pondered what the next absurd escalation of their fake relationship can consist of. He laughed to himself; sickening pet names would do the trick, he decided.

He made it back to the table just as the last of the speeches mercifully concluded and the lights dimmed, bride and groom stepping out for their first dance to a slow, soulful melody. As he sat down, he reached out to twine a strand of Robin's golden hair between his fingers; something deep inside him shuddered as she looked around at him and smiled, leaning slightly into his touch.

"I'm back, Kiwi," he said, smirking at her in what he thought was probably quite a nauseating fashion. He could see her struggling to keep a straight face. She leaned in further so that she could murmur in his ear.

"Kiwi?"

"It's a bird," he whispered back. "Like a robin. It's from Australia."

"It's from New Zealand," she corrected him. "And it's absolutely ridiculous."

He considered this, then shook his head.

"Nah. Ridiculous would have been calling you my little blue-footed booby."

She snorted with laughter at this.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," he breathed.

Sarah, who had been watching this exchange, leaned forward a little unsteadily, clutching what Strike thought might be her fourth glass of wine.

 “So, has it really only been three months since you two got together?” Her voice was louder than was truly necessary to be heard over the music, which had moved to another crooning love song as the dance floor opened up to the crowd.

“What do you mean?” Robin said sharply, jerking back in her seat – she hadn’t realized just how close she had been to Strike.

“Well, come on,” Sarah coaxed, “you’d been working together for so long, it seems a little unbelievable that this only happened so recently.”

“Well, it did.” The smile had dropped entirely from Robin’s face; she looked furious, now, at the insinuation that she had been the unfaithful one in her marriage.

“I mean, Matthew was _so_ broken up when you two split,” Sarah continued, a little recklessly; Matthew himself did not look too pleased at the direction that the conversation was taking. “He was really committed to making it work, you know.”

Turning to look at Strike, as though confiding in him, Sarah drove her point home.

“You know, Cormoran, if someone cheats once they’ll always do it again.”

The sheer hypocrisy of this statement struck Robin silent, but only for a moment; Strike could feel it as she gathered herself in fury, and guessed that this had been one straw too many. He had only a moment in which to act, to avert what was about to officially become A Scene; he stood up abruptly and reached down to take Robin’s hand.

“C’mon. Let’s dance.” He tugged at Robin’s hand and she looked up at him, her surprise momentarily overwhelming her outrage.

“You don’t want to dance!”

“I asked, didn’t I?” He tugged again and Robin gave in, placing the napkin from her lap on the table as she stood, allowing Strike to lead her around the table.

“ _Can_ you dance?” Matthew muttered nastily as they passed, looking pointedly down at Strike’s right leg. Strike heard Robin, standing beside him, gasp; he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder in an apparent gesture of friendliness and leaned down.

“I think I can just about manage to sway back and forth without looking like a complete tit, thanks.” He clapped the man’s shoulder once and then pulled Robin, furious once more, away from the table and on to the dance floor.

He was already holding one of her hands in his; he used his free hand to grasp her at the waist and pulled her closer. He could feel her trembling in anger, could see that she was still glaring back at the table. With somewhat ill grace, she rested a hand on Strike’s shoulder, falling into sync as they swayed together to the music. Strike marvelled once more, for only a moment, at how perfectly she fit into his arms, only a few inches shorter than him in her lofty heels.

“I’m going to kill both of them,” she stated flatly. “I mean it.”

“If you’re going to commit murder,” he replied, trying not to smile at her agitation, “then you should probably wait until there aren’t quite so many witnesses.”

Robin couldn’t help her begrudging smile at this.

“If anyone could get away with murder, I think it would probably be us.”

“Every murderer thinks that, Robin.” She could practically feel him rolling his eyes at her; but the teasing banter had allowed some of her tension to drain away. They danced in silence, Robin gradually relaxing into Strike’s hold.

“I should feel bad for this,” she murmured eventually. “For deliberately antagonizing Matthew. It’s not exactly taking the high road, is it?”

“But you don’t? Feel bad, that is?” Strike looked down at her, searching her eyes for signs of regret.

 “I’ve been having too much fun to feel guilty,” she confessed. Strike snorted in laughter and, impulsively, Robin leaned forward to rest her head against his chest, cheek pressing against the lapel of his Italian suit. He stopped laughing abruptly, and she felt the hand at her waist flex; but he said nothing, and they continued to turn slowly on the spot, swaying in tempo to the music.

For Strike, time seemed to stretch and dilate. He felt almost dizzy, with Robin’s soft curves pressing up against him, her copper and gold head tucked under his chin; he could smell her delicate perfume, feel the vibration as she began to hum along with the music. He cleared his throat.

“Y’know, if we pretend to be madly in love for another two hours, Matthew might just have an aneurysm.” He knew it was a weak joke; he was not surprised when Robin did not immediately respond. After a beat, though, she pulled back to look him in the eye, her chin set in that familiar stubborn line, her eyes blazing as they did when she was about to do something truly reckless, something that she knew he would disapprove of. She was captivating; he couldn't have looked away from her, even if he'd wanted to.

 “I don’t have to pretend.” Her voice was quiet, but clear; she held his gaze, and Strike felt all the air leave his lungs at once, as though he had been punched in the gut.

He could brush it off as a joke, he knew, and she would play along, and never speak of it again. They would return to being friends, and partners, and he could stand on solid ground. He wondered, suddenly, startled, if their partnership could truly survive such a rejection; it might create a distance between them that couldn’t be overcome, and he would be left with nothing.

She hadn’t looked away, but he could see the hesitation grow in her eyes, the embarrassed flush start to creep up her neck.

“Fuck it,” he breathed, and let go; and fell. He leaned down and kissed her. He swallowed her soft gasp of surprise; her lips tasted sweet, the flavours of champagne and chocolate mingling on her breath. She pressed herself insistently against him, humming softly in pleasure as she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, her tongue seeking his; and Strike felt the last shred of his self-control rip away.

He buried one hand in the hair at the nape of her neck; he pressed the other hand against her back, first crushing her against him, then moving to sweep up and down and across her bare skin. She moaned, her mouth hot against his, and he remembered suddenly that they were in public, in the middle of a crowded dance floor.

It took all his strength to wrench his lips from hers; but he managed it, and pulled back far enough to meet her eyes.

Robin was, for a moment, dazed; she could feel her chest heaving, trying to catch her breath. Strike’s hands were still on her back, still tangled in her hair. She was suddenly grateful for his arms supporting her, as she was not entirely sure that she could stand on her own. They had stopped moving, she realized; they were standing in the middle of the dance floor, staring at each other. When Strike finally spoke, his voice was husky.

“I’m not pretending either.” Strike felt almost giddy with desire. He lifted his hands to smooth Robin’s hair away from her face. He was going to kiss her again, he realized, and very soon. Worse, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop; it was going to be damn hard to run surveillance, he thought vaguely, with a partner that he could not stop kissing.

Robin, he realized, was speaking

“Would you like to head out? Go someplace quiet so we can,” she hesitated briefly. “-talk?”

“Quiet,” Strike repeated, his mind suddenly blank. Robin blushed and looked down.

“Back to the office, maybe, or-” she glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “your flat.”

Strike, mouth suddenly dry, nodded mutely. He followed her off the dance floor, trying desperately to gather his scattered wits. As he watched her collect her things and bid a general good night to the table, an unwelcome thought occurred to him.

He waited until they had walked out of earshot towards the exit to speak.

“If we leave, won’t Matthew think he’s ‘won’?” he asked, his tone carefully casual. Robin laughed softly, and reached down to lace her fingers through his.

“Turns out I don’t really give a damn about what Matthew thinks,” she said, and bumped his shoulder playfully with hers, as they stepped out together into the cool evening air.


	4. Chapter 4

The ride back to the office was short, barely ten minutes, and conducted in almost total silence – their cabbie seemed to be unusually taciturn, and neither Strike nor Robin spoke. Strike was content simply to watch Robin’s profile as the lights of the city outside the cab’s windows slid across it, brief flashes of golden illumination in the otherwise darkened back seat of the car.

As they turned onto Oxford Street, Robin glanced over, catching Strike’s unabashed stare. He didn’t look away, and neither did she, although the blush rising in her cheeks was visible in the shadowed light. Instead, she shifted almost imperceptibly closer, her bare knee just brushing against his, and Strike let his hand drift, grazing his knuckles across the back of her hand and up the soft skin of her arm. His gaze intent upon her face, he watched as her lips parted, her tongue darting out to moisten them, as the blush on her cheeks deepened and spread down her neck, across her collarbone –

The cab screeched to a halt, the cabbie’s eyes amused in the rearview mirror as he announced the fare. Strike cursed inwardly as he fumbled out his wallet to pay. Robin, blushing, climbed out of the cab to wait on the sidewalk, fussing absently with the folds of her wrap where it draped over her arms.

She didn’t say anything as Strike clambered clumsily out of the cab, but glanced over her shoulder at him with a soft smile as she unlocked the outer door. He followed her up the clanging staircase, his right knee sending a small twinge shooting up his leg with each step, trying – and failing – not to gawk at the curve of her arse in that clinging green dress as it swayed in front of him.

She paused outside of their office door, but only for a moment. Strike’s heart in his throat, he trailed after her for one flight more, fumbling with his keys in his haste to open the door of his tiny attic flat.

They stepped inside, and he flicked on the overhead lights automatically as the door swung closed behind him. With the click of the door in the silent room, there was an almost tangible shift in the atmosphere between them; Strike could feel it, the tension of anticipation stretching and twisting into a heavy awkwardness. Robin, still with a faint blush on her cheeks, met his eyes briefly before biting her lip and glancing around the cramped sitting room.

Strike coughed. “Cup of tea?” he offered weakly, cringing inwardly at himself. Robin’s nod was grateful, though, so he turned into the kitchen, filling the kettle and setting it to boil.

As he dropped tea bags into two chipped mugs, he heard the sound of Robin moving behind him, the whisper of silk. Strike’s face, reflected in the shaving mirror that he kept beside his sink and lit harshly by the overhead lights, looked craggy and old. As he waited for the water to boil, the tiny nagging doubts that had been silenced when he held Robin in his arms came clamoring back. What was he doing? He had wanted to avoid exactly this – the complications and pitfalls and risks of a romantic affair, the introduction of awkwardness and resentment to their partnership.

"This is a mistake."

Strike's voice breaking the silence, flat and gruff, made Robin jump a little. It took a moment for his words to register as she stared at his broad back, his arms braced against the counter and his head lowered.

"What?" she blurted out, her voice sounding tiny and shrill to her ears, a ball of hot dread and shame starting to form in her stomach. She had been so certain, after months of doubt and hesitation: the heat she'd felt between them, the look in his eyes as he'd told her that—that he... Dread was quickly shifting to panic. Was he about to apologize, to say that he'd been swept away by the moment? How had she gotten it so wrong? _How was she going to face him on Monday_?

She tried desperately to swallow her fear and control her shaking voice, to sound as matter-of-fact as he did. "Do you not—you didn't mean it? What you said?"

He turned around at that, finally, battered face set in a scowl. "‘Course I meant it," he said, crossing his arms across his chest.

Robin's stomach unclenched a little, and though his expression remained forbidding she crossed the kitchen in two short strides to look up at him, taking in his frown, his furrowed brows and, in his eyes, a hint of the same longing that had pierced her as they’d danced.

"You do fancy me, then?" Even as the words were leaving her mouth, Robin was already cringing to herself; she sounded like a teenager, for heaven's sake. Her embarrassment must have shown on her face, because Strike's lips twisted into a wry grin.

"That’s an understatement," he said, a flash of fond affection in his eyes as he looked down at her.

"Then—why—?"

Strike sighed and rubbed his hand over his chin, already rough with stubble, though he had shaved carefully that morning. "We're partners, Robin. We run the business together. When this goes tits up—" He paused, searching for a way to end this without hurting her, a way to return them to where they'd been that morning as they discussed their cases over tea, friendly and easy and uncomplicated. "What we have – I can’t lose this," he finished heavily.

He risked a glance down at Robin's face, where he saw not sorrow or anger as he'd expected, but rather a soft smile brightening her blue eyes.

"You fired me," she said, and Cormoran groaned.

"I know, and I've said about a hundred times that I was—"

"No, Cormoran," she cut him off, holding up a hand to indicate that he should let her speak her piece. "I mean, you fired me, and I'm still here. If we managed to get past that, then I think we'll be able to deal with—with whatever this is." Seeing doubt lurking still in the shadows of his dark eyes, Robin risked another step closer, reaching hesitantly to rest one hand on his lapel, where her head had been nestled less than an hour ago. Reflexively, Strike brought his own hand up to cover it, his rough thumb stroking across her knuckles. She held his eyes with hers, willing him to understand what it was that she was saying.

"Our work, it means as much to me as it does to you. More, even," she added firmly. "So, even if this doesn't work… you’re stuck with me, I'm afraid."

At this, Strike's expression finally eased, and whether it was her words or the touch of her skin on his that had done it didn't matter to Robin. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled back at her, and suddenly it was as if they were back on that dance floor, the anticipation between them taut and thrumming.

"Promise?" His voice was husky, and his thumb was still rubbing gently across the back of her hand. Not quite trusting herself to speak, Robin nodded. She hoped that Strike could read the sincerity in her eyes, and after a moment he nodded, very slightly, more to himself than to her.

Robin's gaze flickered down to his lips, but he didn't move to kiss her again as she'd half expected. Instead, he lifted her hand off his lapel, and repeating the gesture he'd made at the beginning of their evening, pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles. This time, though, the kiss lingered, his eyes boring into hers; and instead of moving away afterwards, he turned her hand over and dropped another kiss, open-mouthed, warm and lingering, on the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. A pleasurable shiver crawled down Robin's spine, and she could feel her pulse quicken.

Hardly daring to breathe, she leaned forward, raising up on her toes, and then her mouth was on his and he was kissing her back, his tongue sliding along her bottom lip, his hands moving up to cradle her face. She pressed herself against him, as she had wanted to do all those months ago in the Land Rover, and thought vaguely that his body felt nothing like Matthew’s had.

Cormoran’s gently expanding stomach was soft against her, but she could feel the strength in his arms as they dropped to wrap around her, the firmness of his chest where her breasts were crushed between them. She hummed in satisfaction at the solid warmth of his body and curled her hands around and under his jacket, running them over the flexing muscles of his broad back, then gripping his shirt to tug it out of his waistband. Strike’s hands had found her bottom, gripping it firmly to pull her closer to him, his mouth hot as it slanted over hers, leaving Robin dizzy with desire as she sagged against him, sinking into the sweep of his tongue against hers.

Strike took a step backwards, then another, and she moved with him, unwilling to wrench her mouth away from his. They came to an abrupt halt as his back bumped up against his bedroom door, where he took one hand from its place on her arse to fumble with the doorknob. Robin caught his bottom lip between her teeth, biting down gently, and with a muttered curse from Strike the door swung open and they stumbled backwards into the shadowy room.

Robin had never seen Strike’s bedroom, and as she pulled back for a moment to catch her breath, she cast a curious glance around it. The space was tiny, filled almost entirely with a neatly made double bed. A small window let some of the street light in, casting dark shadows across Strike’s battered features. He leaned down, capturing her lips with his again, and suddenly the enormity of what she was about to do hit Robin like a double shot of tequila. She was in Strike’s bedroom. She was going to have sex, with him, here, tonight. A sudden stab of nervousness made her stomach turn over, and the hand that she lifted to cup Strike’s cheek as he kissed her was trembling.

At the touch of her hand, Strike stilled; a moment more and he had pulled back, his brow furrowed in concern. Robin, for probably the hundredth time, inwardly cursed his uncanny perceptiveness.

"You OK?" he asked, his eyes searching hers.

 "Yes," she said impatiently, reaching up to kiss him again, but he leaned away, shaking his head slightly and frowning.

"You're shaking," he said, in a mulish tone with which she was all too familiar. Robin sighed.

"It's just—I've only ever...with..." she paused, suddenly feeling anxious and small. She hoped desperately that he would catch her meaning without her having to spell it out: that her only prior sexual partner had been Matthew, and that Strike—with his supermodels and Nordic violinists and stunningly beautiful socialites—would be the only other-

Luckily, she could see understanding dawning on Strike's face, and he took a step back, dropping his hands to his sides.

"We don't have to do this tonight," he said, his eyes dark with desire, but his voice level and quiet. "We can slow down."

"No, I don't want that," she said, without hesitation. Strike raised his eyebrows, as if to ask her what she _did_ want. And while she may have been nervous, she was also dead certain. “I want this,” she breathed. “I want you.”

The ghost of a self-satisfied smirk crossed his lips, but his eyes were steady, gazing into hers with that intense focus that she'd seen him bring to bear so many times on a piece of evidence that needed to be slotted into place, or a witness that he needed to see through to the truth. To be the object of that gaze, here, in his bedroom, with all that had happened tonight hanging between them, sent sparks of electricity racing down her spine.

Robin let out a slow, shaky breath. Strike hadn't moved; his hands still at his sides, though he was flexing them slowly, almost absently. He was going to wait for her to take the lead, she realized, and the thought was a balm to her nerves.

With renewed confidence, she stepped forward to close the distance between them once more. Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth, and she saw his tongue dart out to moisten his lips. She placed her hands on his chest and slid them under the lapels of his jacket, pushing it carefully off his shoulders and down his arms. The sound of it hitting the floor was oddly loud in the quiet room, and Robin thought absently that she must remember later to pick it up and fold it properly, before it creased.

As Robin's slim fingers went to work on the knot of his tie—steadier now than they had been a moment ago—Strike watched her face. He could look at her now without fear, without having to guard himself from detection. He took the opportunity to drink in every detail: the delicate lines of her features; the pink flush of her skin, apparent even in the dark room; her swollen bottom lip caught between her teeth as she pulled his tie through his collar with a whisper of silk against cotton and began, slowly and carefully, to undo the buttons of his shirt.

He remembered thinking, early in their partnership, that Robin—while pretty enough, even sexy—couldn't hold a candle to Charlotte's breathtaking beauty. But Charlotte's beauty had been stark, almost glacial in its perfection. Robin… Robin was all warmth and sunlight. Looking at her was like sinking into a steaming, fragrant bath, like coming home to his Aunt Joan's kitchen on a freezing day in Cornwall, his nose and ears numb from the wind and sea spray, to be met with a mug of cocoa and the promise of freshly baked bread hanging in the air. Would he ever tire of looking at her, of being with her, of hearing her soft laugh? He suspected that he wouldn't, that every moment with her would always leave him craving more.

A strand of her hair had fallen forward, and he reached out to brush it back behind her ear, wanting to feel the soft silk slipping between his fingers once more. Her hands stilled on the fourth button of his shirt, and her eyes flicked up to meet his. Strike let his hand drift down, softly grazing his fingers over the skin of her throat. Robin's lips parted slightly with a sharp inhale of breath, her eyes darkening with desire. He moved to trace the line of her collarbone, entranced by the smooth skin under his fingers, by the rise and fall of her chest as her breath quickened.

Robin felt as though every nerve ending in her body had become hypersensitive, as if electric currents were flickering under her skin. Cormoran's fingers were leaving burning trails across her chest, and she was suddenly, viscerally conscious of the silk of her dress brushing against her legs and tightening across her breasts as she inhaled.

She had undone enough of Strike’s buttons to reveal a wide swath of his broad, hairy chest, dark against the crisp white of his shirt. Curious—Matthew had always shaved his chest bare—she brought her hand up to mirror his, running the tips of her fingers over the bump of his Adam's apple, then down through the coarse curls. She flexed her hand experimentally, raking her nails over his skin in gentle scratches; Strike made a sound deep in his throat, almost a growl, and she had to stifle a giggle.

But her urge to giggle was cut off as Strike cupped the back of her head with one big hand and pulled her mouth up to his in a crushing kiss, his tongue thrusting forwards; she moaned, opening her mouth for him, mirroring his movements, then caught his bottom lip between her teeth and tugged, feeling the length of his erection pressed against her stomach pulse in response.

With a muttered “Fuck, Robin,” Strike wrenched his lips away from hers to trail sucking, bruising kisses over the length of her neck as his free hand dropped down, hiking up the skirt of her dress to stroke the skin of her thigh and drag across the curve of her hip, his calloused fingers snagging on the lace of her underwear. He brushed his thumb over her center, the radiating damp heat of her searing against his skin. Robin jerked forward against his hand and let out a strangled moan, her head falling to his shoulder; he repeated the motion, dragging his thumb in circles against her, concentrating on memorizing her sighs and gasps, the thrust of her hips and the grip of her fingers on his biceps.

And then she was pushing at his shoulders, surprising strength in her slim hands as she urged him backwards. He fell back onto the bed, landing heavily with his arms behind him to brace himself. It took only a moment for Robin to climb over him, settling her weight on her knees as she straddled him, her dress rucked up around her hips.

Her hands went to the hem of her dress. She hesitated for a moment, glancing down, and then in one smooth movement she pulled her dress up and over her head. Strike leaned back on his elbows, mouth dry, limbs frozen, unable to do anything but drink in the sight of her: golden hair tousled in a cloud around her face, the generous curves of her body dipping and swelling, skin glowing silver where the light from the street coming in through the tiny window fell on it.

Steadily, deliberately, her eyes fixed on his, Robin reached back to unhook and shrug off her bra. Her breasts felt heavy with her arousal, and she could feel the puckering skin drawn tight around her nipples. She resisted the urge to cover herself with her arms as she watched Strike’s face, his eyes roaming over her, the heat of his gaze almost palpable on her skin. When his eyes finally settled back onto hers, the awe and longing in them made her breath catch in her throat.

“Christ,” he rasped, bringing one hand up to splay across her stomach, “you’re exquisite.”

The solid strength of his hand combined with the quiet reverence in his voice was too much. Robin felt tears prick in the corners of her eyes and bent forward, kissing him sweetly, her hair falling around her face. He deepened the kiss, his mouth slow and languorous on hers, both of his hands now moving over her body, stroking her back, moving to cup her breasts and roll her taut nipples gently between his calloused fingers, stoking the fire that was pooling low in her belly.

Straddling his hips, she could feel his hard length pressing against her, and rocked forward against him, the friction of her lace underwear against the tightly stretched fabric of his trousers sending delicious frissons of pleasure shooting through her core. Strike growled against her lips and moved his hands back to her waist; she repeated the movement, and his fingers tightened, pressing her down and digging into her flesh as he threw back his head with a muttered curse.

Robin’s hands moved to his belt, fumbling to undo the buckle. Strike put his own hands on hers, stilling her movement.

“Not yet,” he said, his voice husky and a grin tugging the corners of his mouth upwards.

Wrapping one arm firmly around Robin’s waist, Strike pushed himself off the bed, using the momentum to flip her onto her back and push her higher up on the bed. Grinning a little at her startled, breathy giggle, and ignoring the twinge of pain in his knee - still buckled into the prosthetic - he climbed over her. Bracing his arms on either side of her head, he began to retrace the path of his hands with his lips, planting open mouthed kisses down the warm line of her neck and breathing in the scent of her skin.

Robin heard herself moan at the heat of Strike’s mouth caressing her, the rasping of his stubble on her skin and the gentle nip of his teeth on her collarbone sending ripples of pleasure through her, cascading down into the familiar, torturous, delicious ache of arousal. Her hands twining in his dense, curly hair, Robin urged him down, further down, desperate for relief. She could feel him grinning against the skin of her belly, and had a moment of doubt. Was she being too forward? Too wanton? But she banished that thought as quickly as it came; she was done with feeling guilty about who she was, feeling shame for what she desired. Cormoran tugged at her underwear and she lifted her hips to help him slide them off; a heartbeat more, and she let herself melt into the press of his lips, his swirling tongue, the gentle caresses of his calloused fingers.

Strike shifted down on the bed, arranging himself to take pressure off his bad knee, trying to relieve some of the dull, throbbing pain that was his lot at the end of every long day on his feet.But no amount of shifting could ease the ache of his erection, rock hard against his mattress as Robin gasped and writhed beneath him. He closed his eyes, savouring the taste of her, a hint of salt and copper tang, velvet-smooth under his mouth. He could feel the quiver of her thighs, the clenching of her fingers in his hair as his fingers teased her slick folds and his tongue circled her clit. He slipped one finger inside of her tight wet heat, feeling the flutter of her muscles around him. She bucked against him, keening.

“More… please,” she panted, and Strike obligingly added a second finger, thrusting slowly and steadily into her as he nipped and sucked at her folds, his thumb drawing tight circles around her clit.

Robin’s head dropped back, her eyes slipping closed as she sighed at the feeling of Strike’s fingers pushing into her, stretching her; a slow warmth was spreading up her belly, across her breasts, making her toes curl against the bedspread. The coil of tension in her belly was being wound tighter and tighter by the steady strokes of Cormoran’s fingers and lips and tongue; unbidden, her hips began thrusting up against him as she half-sobbed his name, desperate for relief. He pressed down on her belly with his free hand, pushing her into the bed as he curled his fingers inside her. And suddenly the tension, drawn too tight, snapped, sending shattering waves of pleasure crashing through Robin, her stomach and thighs clenching as she arched up off the bed. Strike did not let her go, but continued lapping gently at her as she rode through her orgasm and the shivering aftershocks. Only after she had collapsed limply back onto the bed did he crawl up to lie beside her.

Robin had no idea how long she floated, hazy, trying to catch her breath; but eventually she managed to roll her head lazily to look over at Strike, whose head was propped up on one of his hands as he smirked at her, his other hand stroking gently across the skin of her stomach.

“Don’t look so bloody smug,” she murmured, but that only made his grin wider as he leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her nose, which she wrinkled at him. He continued, dropping soft, fluttering kisses across her cheeks and forehead until, giggling, she managed to make the weak muscles of her arm cooperate enough to grip the back of his head and guide his mouth to hers. She hummed against his lips, pressing herself languidly against the length of his body. She could feel his erection hard against her hip and wriggled against it, smiling a little as Strike’s grip on her waist tightened reflexively and he let out a huff of air against her ear.

“Shouldn’t you take those off?” she whispered, dropping her hand to tug at the waistband of his trousers.

Strike grunted in agreement and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. As he fumbled with the buckle of his belt, he felt the mattress shift as Robin moved, and then her hot breath on his neck as she knelt behind him. She dropped soft kisses across his shoulder and traced the long scar on his back – courtesy of Donald Laing – with her fingers as he finally got the snaps and zips undone and lifted his hips to push his trousers down.

As he bent over to ease the prosthesis off his aching knee, he felt Robin press herself against his back, peering over his shoulder—and then his head jerked back as her agile hand slipped inside his boxers to wrap firmly around his cock.

“Fucking Christ,” he hissed, and he could feel Robin snickering against his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound apologetic at all, an impression that was reinforced when she twisted her wrist, dragging her clenched fist slowly up and down his length, yanking his boxers down with her other hand. Cursing, Strike bent down again to try and make his fumbling fingers cooperate.

Finally, he got the prosthesis off, and in one smooth movement twisted his upper body around to launch himself at Robin, pinning her beneath his bulk as she giggled. He dropped his head to nuzzle at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, breathing in the scent of perfume clinging to her hair.

“I can’t bloody concentrate when you do that,” he said against her skin, and thrust himself against her, cock sliding along her glistening folds, to emphasize his point.

“Good,” she said, and then, “Turn over?” as she twisted her hips underneath him. Strike thought for a moment of refusing, of feeling her dissolve beneath him again, but dismissed the thought as soon as it arrived. Obediently he rolled himself over onto his back, dragging her along to lay on top of him.

Though the muscles of her thighs still felt a bit shaky, Robin pushed herself up to rest on her knees. Her eyes flickered over Cormoran’s massive body lying beneath her, drawn irresistibly to the thick length of his cock, jutting up against his stomach. She reached out one of her hands to wrap around it again, weighing it in her palm as she stroked it, running her thumb over the swollen head and watching, fascinated, as it jerked in her hand and the muscles of Strike’s thighs rippled and clenched.

“Robin,” said Strike, his voice strained. Robin flicked her eyes up to his face and her hand stilled; his jaw was clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek, and the hunger smoldering in his dark eyes as he watched her made Robin clench pleasurably against the flutter of answering arousal.

About to shift herself over him, she hesitated. “Do you have...” she trailed off, unsure of the etiquette– she and Matthew had relied on her birth control alone for so many years. But Strike seemed to have anticipated her, and had leaned over to rummage in his bedside drawer. The sound of the foil ripping seemed louder than it should have been, Robin thought, but any hint of awkwardness vanished when Strike kept his eyes on hers as he rolled the condom over himself, and then guided her hips towards him, slipping across her folds to press against her entrance.

Robin’s breath caught in her throat as she lowered herself slowly onto him. It had been so long, and Cormoran was thicker, longer than she had been used to – and wouldn’t Matthew hate that! But she pushed that thought firmly out of her mind as quickly as it had arrived. This wasn’t about Matthew, had never really been about getting even with Matthew; it was about the man who was stretching her, filling her, fitting perfectly into every part of her body, her heart.

A puff of breath, a tilt of her hips, and she had bottomed out, every inch of him pulsing inside of her. Robin balanced herself with her hands resting on Strike’s stomach and leaned forward slightly, hair falling around her face. She felt Strike’s hands leave her hips, and then they were at her face, tucking her hair securely behind her ears. She flashed a little grin at him, but his face was serious as he moved his hands back down, gliding over the skin of her breasts and stomach to rest at her waist, holding her steady.

“God,” he breathed. “I’m—” he paused, licking his lips. Robin rolled her hips against him experimentally, and his eyes snapped shut, head slamming back against the bed. “I’m so fucking in love with you,” he ground out, teeth clenched. Robin took a shuddering breath in; Cormoran’s body had tensed beneath her, his eyes still closed, his face stilled as though waiting for an axe to fall.

“Well, that’s lucky then,” she managed, her voice thick with emotion. “I was worried I’d be the only one in love.” She leaned forward to rest her forehead against his, waiting until he opened his eyes. When he did, they were bright with – she suspected – unshed tears. She kissed him then, softly, and rolled her hips again.

Strike groaned low in his throat and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her body against his and jerking his hips upwards, ripping a small cry from her throat. She thrust back against him and kissed him fiercely, then pushed herself back up, hands planted firmly on his chest. The shift in angle meant that Strike slid deeper inside her, and her eyelids fluttered closed as she flexed her thigh muscles and began to ride him in earnest.

She looked like a goddess, Strike thought dazedly as she moved above him, setting a steady rhythm, her generous breasts bouncing with the movement and her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. One of the ancient goddesses bathed in moonlight, powerful and  beautiful. He could feel the tension gathering at the base of his spine as he thrust into her tight, wet heat, and knew he wasn’t going to last long – they had been building up to this for too long, she looked too beautiful, felt too good around him.

He brought one of his hands around to where they were joined, thrumming against her clit, and she whimpered, her movement faltering a little as her hips stuttered. It took only a moment for her to regain the rhythm. He could feel her fluttering around him and sped up his thrusts, his thumb against her keeping pace. Robin’s head rolled back, a bright red flush spreading slowly over her chest and up her throat. Her movements became frantic, urgent, as she slammed her hips down over and over. Strike replaced his circling thumb with the heel of his palm, grinding firmly against her; and then with a guttural moan Robin stilled, tensed, Strike’s cock buried deep inside her as she clenched and spasmed around him. Strike slowed his hips, thrusting slowly, shallowly, the feel of her orgasm rippling through her pushing him close to the edge himself.

A moment more and Robin collapsed against him, burying her face in his shoulder. “God, Cormoran,” she whispered, her breath hot against his neck. And then she bit down on his earlobe and his control shattered.

“Fuck… FUCK,” he growled, and gripped her hips, fingers digging into her flesh, slamming upwards, twice, three times, and then his orgasm ripped through him like thunder, his hips jerking frantically as he pulsed and spilled inside of her.

As he fell back to earth, Strike became conscious of Robin whispering something incoherently in his ear; her body was a comforting weight draped over him, and she seemed uninclined to move, which suited him. He carded his fingers through her hair, lifting it away from where it had stuck to the sweat-slicked skin of her neck, and tried to remember how to breathe.

\---

“I’m glad you made me go to that stupid wedding,” Strike mumbled into Robin’s hair. She was lying pressed into his side, her hand playing idly with the hairs on his chest, her thigh thrown over his, her delicate calf and foot angled back to rest in the space where his lower leg should have been.

“So’m I,” she murmured sleepily.  “Although,” she propped her chin up on his chest to look at him, “it would have saved a lot of time and effort if we’d just gone down the pub for a couple of drinks, then came back up and spent the rest of the night shagging.”

Strike’s laugh was deep and rumbling. Robin could feel his stomach shaking under her with it, and his hand at her hip tightened.

“Well, I’ll just put that down on the calendar for tomorrow night then, shall I?” he tried to keep his voice light and teasing, but didn’t quite manage it. What if tomorrow she had come to her senses—realized that she could do so much better?

Robin seemed to sense the seriousness behind his joking question. She didn’t laugh, but instead placed a gentle kiss over his heart and rested her cheek against it.

“I’d like that,” she whispered.

As he played absently with a strand of her hair and felt the warmth of her even breathing against his chest, Strike thought that he would quite like that as well; that he would, in fact, like to spend every night for the rest of his life with Robin in his arms. But he filed that thought away as something to be examined later; for now, he was content to slip into sleep and face tomorrow when it came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've finally finished! It took much longer than I thought it would, but I'm glad you all were willing to bear with me. This is my very first time writing smut, and I'm a bit nervous, so if you like it, please drop me a comment to let me know :)
> 
> A million thanks to bethanyactually, who was kind enough to beta read this final chapter; and thank you also to every single person who has commented on this story, the fact that I have managed to finish it is entirely down to your enthusiasm and encouragement. If I have forgotten to respond to a comment, please know that I treasure each and every one!
> 
> An update on what's coming up in the future from me in this tiny fandom: I'll be continuing In Bad Faith, as well as the two sequels that I have planned for it. I also have a sprawling Regency AU that's been devouring my brain, and which I will probably start writing simultaneously. Also keep an eye out for a bunch of assorted one-shots - and if you have any requests for things you'd like to see, let me know in the comments!


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